SingingTreeYoga

We are often, sometimes mostly thinking about food. Nourishing your body and mind is about supplying the system with healthy options. Sugar is a basic boon, but should only be consumed on occasion alongside a healthy balanced diet. I know people who read health reports and suddenly cut out nutritious fruit because it contains sugar! But fruit contains fibre, vitamins and minerals UNLIKE candy, crisps and fizzy drinks...fruit contains Potassium, Vitamin C's, D's, Calcium, Phytonutrients (which helps the body from the detrimental effects of free radicals). It's crazy to not eliminate the bad sugars first. Anyway that's my 2 cents. Stay with fresh fruit and vegetables and feel your energy stabilise and sustain you better. Next focus on exercise and the energy you need to keep you actively exercising. Remember the freedom of running around constantly as a child? If anyone is desperate to avoid fruit, well I think you are crazy, having lived in a tropical hot countr

Walking is very good for you. For example I could tell you facts like : Walking helps you maintain a healthy weight. Walking helps prevent or manage various conditions, including heart disease, high blood pressure and type 2 diabetes. Walking strengthens your bones and muscles. Walking definitely improves your mood. It is scientifically proven to improve your balance and coordination. But I'm not going to tell you all those things because that would not really be Yoga. Yoga, one could say, is walking, running, meditating all these things. Yoga is walking and we can benefit from both and everything that a great walk in the fresh air and the open countryside gives you. Yoga gives back too! Not a day goes by when I don't ponder what "Yamas and Niyamas" are, after sitting my Iyengar Yoga course, studying and writing essays on this Yogic subject the words got stuck in the brain somewhere. I knew that over time these ethical guidelines or foundations of living wo

It's been snowing down South. Well so I was told on the phone today. Hooray for snow! Hooray for watching the seasons switch! Crisp, Blue cold mornings and sudden snow flurries. Yoga will warm you from the inside. Yoga is the best weather buffer - along with a woolly coat that is. Yoga is a great way to reward yourself, and practise self-care and love. Tomorrow is Valentines and it's good to think about all the single people out there, the ones that slipped through the relationship net for the time being. Physical and mental health includes being OK with being by yourself. Yoga is a practise that can really help with creating the kind of love that gives us the time and space to develop and use our talents. It's the kind of love that frees us to discover and to foster our true purpose in life. Everyone wants transformation, we're genetically programmed to progress you know. So how do we satisfy that in a busy and crowded world. The answer is through Yoga or any

I may have missed out on an Opera role. I don't know, they never replied. I feel though somehow lighter and relieved of the burden. Such heavy themes in Opera can sometimes deeply effect the performer and well maybe the time is just not right for me to sing the part of drastic romantic story of tuberculosis and death. SingingTreeYoga has more Yogic sights ahead. And today, isn't this always the way I was handed some beautiful new music to learn. An original chapel piece. So 'what goes up must come down' and visa versa. February is showing some learning curves, that of patience. I am impatient and find it tricky to control that feeling. But this modern world supplies us with all our needs - for I found a fantastic new mindfulness app. It's called Headspace and it helps me observe the thoughts, not fight or try to control them and hopefully will improve the sleep. That is all for today, it being Sunday 😊 ' Yoga is like music. The rhythm of the body, the

Running to catch a coffee in Highgate Village I'm reminded as groups of women talk about their YOGA session. Yes, GROUPS of women now sit and talk about their Yoga classes together. It's brilliant how connected the practise of doing a class makes you feel in your community. So someone says 'but doing Yoga makes me feel really stressed out'. Wow. That is not the objective of Iyengar Yoga. We use multiple props to bring people back into their bodies, to soften in places you normally cannot reach. The props help and support. They offer an external surface for you to experiment and feel any tension LEAVE the body. Please never give up and do try lots of different sorts of Yoga. I do know myself and how I especially enjoy Guruju's Iyengar Yoga - because of it's firm structure because it offers stability and repetition. Even though there is a never ending amount of asana and variations to explore. Repetition for muscles and bone, ligaments and nervous system doe

Last night a new friend gave me some invaluable advice. I'm in some trouble with finances at the moment and sorting out a music publishing arrangement. Ah... it happens a lot more frequently than you'd think in the Creative Industries. Anyway, as I was receiving slightly frightening emails from the other side of the world late last night and getting very worked up and stressed because I can't control what is happening on the other side of the world. He sent me a Vlog from Bob Proctor. All about how to eliminate fear. Well, I'd never rationalised the feeling of fear in that context. That is receiving emails. So his rational teaching and practical tips on how to overcome that feeling, really comforted me. Overcoming and eliminating fear can be applied to Yoga too. You can use this sort of approach to your asana, thereby freeing yourself within your practise and gaining so much more enjoyment. Think wide oceans, think tropical warm weather and don't let anyone

In this blog you I will attempt to take you on a journey of connectedness, on a search for inner harmony and happiness. There will be little in way of instructional teaching as I believe when you start your relationship with Yoga it grows exponentially with you. Bringing happiness, independence and contentedness to your life. Maybe I will throw in an asana here and there, but only by way of my own development with Yoga. I have been practising Yoga for near on fifteen years, my guru is/was my Contemporary Dance teacher Melodie. I did Ballet and Contemporary dance when I was 13 with Melodie and through yoga she has given me such strength and rewards that I apply directly to that other classical Art form Opera. So partically I wanted to start this blog to give-back something, a little of what DOING Yoga has done for me. It's the wheel in the cog when things don't go right and in the Arts believe me, things do not always go smoothly. So this blog may not be visceral and phy

Insomnia is a modern day blight. You know you have it when your local doctor says to you 'get up at dawn and exercise'. ‘Be with the seasons’. Well possibly a GP probably wouldn’t say it like that; ‘be with the seasons’ but you get my drift.  Don’t worry if you can’t surrender the head to the heart at first, keep trying. This way you will be sure to set the ego aside, thoughts will become more subtle and your physical and mental awareness lightened. You will feel lighter. If one feels lighter then you can see more light, or ‘let in the light’ it’s better for humanity on the whole. Try Purvottanasana today. First, it lengthens the front of your body, (referred to as the "east" side in yoga, since it would face the rising sun if you were doing Sun Salutations). It strengthens your back body and helps give extension to the entire back. It is useful for firming and shaping the arms too by putting them in a deep extension. And... Always refer

Today I've been thinking about garnering knowledge, to expand ones’ horizons. It's always the acceptance of the new that eases the journey. It’s been a whole four months of SingingTreeYoga! I’m enjoying and admiring just how many of you out there LOVE Yoga. The end of January sees the trees starting to have their annual make-over. When I take a walk, I like to look-up at them, admire their plumage so to speak. Ha ah! Looking up is important; if you start to feel the effects of seasons change. Supported sitting asana / poses can help calm the mind, but don’t forget to change your eyes’ gaze as a way to temper your own thoughts and mood. Look towards a horizon, look inward keep the gaze passive. "Maybe the journey isn’t so much about becoming anything. Maybe it’s about un-becoming everything that isn’t really you… so you can be who you were meant to be in the first place.” ~Unknown